Cornerstone cracks China


22 Feb 2005

Cornerstone International has signed two training and testing agreements valued at €2m with leading Chinese organisations following the recent Enterprise Ireland trade mission to China.

Based in the NovaUCD innovation centre, Cornerstone International provides software development training and automated testing systems (ATS) for the Chinese market. China is now considered to be one of the most attractive offshore outsourcing countries with over 140,000 software engineers graduating each year. The value of outsourced software development is forecast to quadruple to US$27bn by 2008.

Cornerstone International has signed a training and testing agreement with ATA, a locally based ATS specialist, to deploy over 1,000 testing/training centres across China that will deliver training and testing to organisations and professional software engineers on advanced software engineering courses, as well as basic courses such as ICDL (International Computer Driving Licence).

ATA also provides professional certification to organisations such as the Chinese Ministry of Education.

Cornerstone International has also signed a training and testing agreement with Neusoft, based in Liaoning province in the north-east of China. Neusoft is the first software development company in China to receive CMM (Capability Maturity Model) Level 5 certification. Neusoft is China’s largest software and training company, and is a leading software and solutions provider in the digital medical products and IT training industries. This agreement covers the delivery of training to organisations and professional software engineers for advanced software engineering courses.

Commenting on the deals, Kraken Yu, CEO of Cornerstone International, said: “The signing of these agreements puts Cornerstone International at the forefront of Sino-Irish software industry collaboration and also provides the company with a platform for a wide range of specialised training in different sectors.”

He added: “In addition to our own training and testing needs, Cornerstone International now has a technology and distribution platform that we can offer to third parties. Using our translation, localisation and test development resources we can develop and deliver, in China’s major cities, training and automated testing for Irish and other organisations such as professional bodies, software vendors or any organisation that has a need to train and test in China.”

Cornerstone International was founded by Kraken Yu and Darach McEvoy, a chartered accountant and former PwC management consultant.

By Brian Skelly